He was the third boy and youngest brother of Vincent van Gogh and siblings Theo, Anna, Elisabeth (Lies), and Willemien (Wil).

[3] Cor van Gogh left the Netherlands for South Africa at the outbreak of the Second Boer War (1899-1902).

In Pretoria, he was employed to make technical drawings for the Netherlands-South African Railway Company (Nederlandsh-Zuid-Afrikaansche Spoorweg Maatschappij).

In Pretoria he married Anna Eva Catherina Fuchs, a German-born Roman Catholic, in February 1898.

[6] Cor was left in possession of his pistol and on 12 April 1900, he shot himself in his hospital bed, perhaps accidentally.